[UA] Re: Okay, a designed for NPCs adept school

[Mattias Östklint]

Yes, definetely, totally. Agree. Or even better: don't just give us the
skill (or school or avatar or whatever) but GIVE US THE GUY! You have a
great, wonderful, lovable kittendrowner all written up, somewhere (and a
full-size cult as well), and you give us only a bunch of spells???

That's cheap.

Mattias Östklint             tel:   036-146856
EM-OKA                          fax: 036-146064
56182 Huskvarna

----- Message from Tim Groth <tim.groth at gmail.com> on Wed, 9 Feb 2005
00:24:14 -0500 -----
                                                                   
      To: The Unknown Armies RPG Mailing List                      
          <ua at lists.unknown-armies.com>                            
                                                                   
 Subject: Re: [UA] Okay, a designed for NPCs adept school          
                                                                   

> >Generate a Major charge: Drown yourself (the ultimate sacrifice).
>
> Uh... it doesn't make a lot of sense to get a charge and not have any way
to
> use it.

I'm going to ditto this and add a general comment.  The major charge
condition of a school ought to be an "aha" moment for adepts.  Like
the discovery of a quantum theory of gravity adepts know the goal but
don't get it until they get the charge.  If the school doesn't look
like it'll have one of those moments it is time for a bit of redesign.
 If the school looks like it'll require the adepts death for such a
moment it is unlikely that the school would have been created at all.
I think of the major charge as a recapturing of the insight that
founded the school.

I think the concept is interesting, but I don't think it should be a
school.  A body of rituals or a strange skill (like the Urban Shaman
has) would be better.  I'd say that the only reason to create a new
school for a campaign is if a major plot point is going to revolve
around the school.  Schools that fit into some common thing in
everyday life that isn't being exploited for all its PoMo goodness are
neat, but in general I find that a number of schools (including
published ones) ought to have been strange skills instead.

The dividing line between school and strange skill is about charge and
spell structure.  Strange skills that do adept like things are
primarily dynamic magic with a lean towards minor effects with
occasional significant ones.  Strange skills can also focus on
external obligations for depriving a practitioner of power, where
schools ought to have taboos that grow from the same place the mojo
does.

--
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